“Due to unforeseen circumstances, we were forced to cancel the last three showings of Into the Swamp.

We hope you accept our sincerest apologies and have a good night."

            He looks down at the ticket he is holding and back at the sign posted on the theater door. "What the fuck?" he mutters to himself. He looks around at about another twenty confused faces; everyone smiles at each other sympathetically and sorrowfully. He begins walking away from the main door unsure of what else to do but notices a small window on one of the side door and decides to peer in. He doesn't see anything or anyone, the backstage passage is dark, the only light coming from the street outside. He turns around to stare at the street again as it begins raining.

            "Ryan! What's up dude?" his friend asks, running towards him out of breath.

            He doesn't say anything, just points at the sign on the door. "Oh fuck man, what are we going to do?" he shrugs, he's just as confused as Logan is. "I don’t know dude," he finally says, "nothing we can do really." He turns to look at other disappointed theater goers, "if you think about, it's really not that big of a loss," he says with a smile.

            They had scored the tickets thanks to Logan's job as an amateur theater critic. He was currently only asked to see and review the less than famous, sub-par plays around the city, the ones that really needed the favorable publicity but had really no chance of getting it. Ryan figured this was definitely not the right way to get a whole cast of people on the right path, he wasn’t a theater expert but he guessed cancelling performances is not the thing that will give you the right track record. He had gone to keep Logan company more than anything else. He wasn’t dying to see a play with a mediocre cast and a less than flashy name. This play is so off Broadway, he tells himself, that Broadway shouldn't even be included in the description. The description should say: "A promising off play" rather than "A promising off-Broadway play." He laughs at his own joke startling Logan, who turns to him with a puzzled look.

            Ryan shakes his head, "it's nothing, just something I thought." Logan still looks confused but much less interested in that explanation than in the unexplained laughter. "Dude I made it all the way into the city for this play, I'm not about to take another long-ass subway ride just to end up back in my living room," Ryan says pulling a cigarette pack out of the back pocket of his faded black jeans.

            "I feel you," responds Logan taking the cigarette Ryan is holding out to him, "let's go chillatabarorsomething," he adds unintelligibly with the cigarette dangling from between his loose lips. They begin walking away in a non specific location, Logan pulls the collar of his jean jacket up as Ryan takes a drag of his cigarette while throwing the now crumpled theater ticket into the nearest trashcan and missing.

            Ryan figures their night can only get better from here. Now that they don’t have to go see this play, they can go out and have fun in the city. They decide the rain isn't coming down hard enough to call for a cab or a subway ride and opt to walk the twenty blocks to the Lower East Side.

            Ryan is still sucking on his cigarette — lost in his own thoughts — when Logan stops and screams "NOOOO!"

            "Dude, you alright?" asks Ryan calmly turning around. Logan is now stopped in the middle of the sidewalk staring down at the floor, both hands on his head, panting. "I just dropped my phone," he says looking up doe eyed at Ryan.  "Don't get all drama queen on me," responds Ryan walking back the few steps to where his friend is stopped.

            He looks down at the bottom-face-up phone and scratches his head, "Well we got two options," starts Ryan, "either we stand here staring at your phone laying on the sidewalk, or we pick it up and asses the damage," he finishes, flicking ash onto the sidewalk. Logan stops to think for a moment, before bending down and picking up his iPhone off the grimy sidewalk. He slowly turns it to come face to face with his worst nightmare, not only is the screen shattered in every possible way, but parts of it have actually fallen off and now lay on the dirty ground like the cracked remains of a Whiskey bottle some hobo was drinking the night before.

            "Let's go get a drink and worry about this later," Ryan interjects quickly to get Logan's mind off the now shattered phone — and because he is no mood to deal with his friend’s antics. Logan agrees and they start off on their journey towards LES once again, Logan’s spirits are down and Ryan pats his friend on the back.

NOW, nothing else can go wrong, Ryan thinks to himself once again; our plans were cancelled without us knowing, we have a broken phone and the rain is starting to come down harder. He knows life has to give them at least one piece of good news, after all this is their night off and both he and Logan are looking to let off some steam.

            They finally make it into a bar, soaked to the bones, the rain deciding to turn into a downpour for their last three blocks and, of course, they hit every single red hand along the way. They shake their coats and hairs off and sit next to one of the heating vents, hoping the warmth will dry their clothing and stop the trembling that has their bones rattling like a box of crackers.

            Soaked, with half a phone and having seen minus one plays, Ryan is thankful for finally reaching their ultimate destination. The waitress comes up to the table and hands them both menus, walking away before they are able to tell her they already know what they want to drink. They spend a few minutes in silence Ryan staring at the crowd inside the bar and Logan's gaze burrowing into the menu — he always thinks he will be creative in his drink choice, but he always gets the same thing. Finally, the waitress arrives and they order their drinks.  Ryan asks for a Doghead and a shot of Patron, "silver please" with a wink to the somewhat overweight waitress. "I'll have a Gin and Tonic and a shot of vodka," says Logan closing his menu and handing it to the waitress without really looking at her. She snatches the menus away and moves onto the bar to place the orders without another word.

            Ryan and Logan sit at their table chatting. Ryan complains about his job and says he can’t take it anymore, Logan tells him to quit — for the hundredth time this week — to no avail. Logan talks about his most recent girl trouble as he pulls his shoe off and squeezes the water out of his sock. They laugh at the current series of events, thinking that nothing else could go wrong when the lights in the bar suddenly go out.

            "Fuck dude," says Ryan laughing.

            "And we don't even have our drinks to drown our sorrows," responds Logan as he pulls his iPhone out and turns the flashlight — the only intact thing on his phone — on.

            The bar continues buzzing as if nothing has happened. Logan and Ryan try to locate their waitress hoping that while they sit in the dark they can at least enjoy their cold drinks.

            "You think this is some kind of cosmic joke?" Ryan suddenly asks.

            "What do you mean?"

            "Maybe we were supposed to watch that play and then none of this would have happened you know?" he continues, "What if we went to watch the play and we were inside the theater for this crazy rain and then your phone wouldn’t have slipped from your grasp. And once we made it to a bar it was empty and they had a bunch of candles lit to survive the darkness giving it a cool atmospheric glow rather than the shitty white light of your phone," he finishes off pointing at Logan's cracked iPhone.

            "The good news is," says a confident Logan, "that as of now pretty much nothing else can go wrong. We're going to drink and get tipsy and go home and fall into a deep drunken stupor," he says raising and imaginary glass up in the air triumphantly. Just as Ryan is lifting his own fist up in the air to clink imaginary glasses with his friend, the waitress shows up with their drinks.

            "Gin and Tonic. Doghead." She says placing each drink in front of the respective customer. She looks longingly at each shot in the dark. "Uhhh, I think this is the vodka and this is the Patron," she says placing them in the center of the table, she shrugs "it's dark, we're busy, I'm not sure," she adds as a way of telling them to deal with it. They pick up their shots and smell them, "I think this is yours," says Ryan exchanging shot glasses with Logan.

            "Now for a real toast," says Logan, "may our biggest problems always be a cancelled play, rain, a cracked iPhone and a dark bar!" They clink glasses and confidently down their shots.

            They bring their glasses down on the table, both with an unhappy look on their faces. For once, life was throwing them a lifesaver and they threw it back — sinking in the process. The waitress had been right after all, and when they switched drinks, they had dealt the loosing round, successfully taking a shot of their most hated liquor.